User:IcyEuropanMoon/sandbox/Robert Pappalardo
 | This is not a Wikipedia article: It is an individual user's work-in-progress page, and may be incomplete and/or unreliable. For guidance on developing this draft, see Wikipedia:So you made a userspace draft. Find sources: Google (books · news · scholar · free images · WP refs) · FENS · JSTOR · TWL |
Dr. Robert Pappalardo is an American planetary scientist at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory. He currently serves as a Senior Research Scientist as well as the Project Scientist for NASA's Europa Clipper Mission. His research focuses on processes that have shaped the icy satellites of the outer solar system, especially Europa and the role of its probable subsurface ocean. In addition, he worked on NASA's Galileo and Cassini missions.
Education[edit]
Dr. Pappalardo graduated from Cornell University in 1986, where he earned a B.A. in Geological Sciences. In 1994 he received his Ph.D. in Geology from Arizona State University.
Early Career[edit]
Dr. Pappalardo carried out his postdoctoral research at Arizona State University and Brown University from 1994 - 2006, which was focused on image targeting and planning for NASA's Galileo mission. From 2001- 2006, he worked as an Assistant Professor at the University of Colorado Boulder in the Astrophysical and Planetary Sciences Department & Laboratory for Atmospheric and Planetary Sciences. While at CU Boulder, he also served as a visiting faculty member at Brown University's Department of Geological Sciences and California Institute of Technology's Division of Geological and Planetary Sciences. In 2006, Dr. Pappalardo began his career at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, where he was hired on as a Principal Scientist and Director's Fellow.
NASA Mission Work[edit]
Galileo Mission[edit]
From 1994 - 2001 while completing his post-doc at Arizona State University and Brown University, Pappalardo was an affiliate member of the Galileo Solid State Imaging team. He was responsible for planning and analyzing camera images of two of Jupiter's icy moons Europa and Ganymede. These were the first close-up images of these bodies ever taken, and help galvanize interest in the question of whether or not Europa housed a subsurface ocean underneath its icy shell.
Pappalardo's primary contributions to the Galileo mission's scientific body of knowledge include his description of the nature of tectonics on Jupiter's moon Ganymede, the hypothesis of Jupiter's moon Europa having a surface ice shell tens of kilometers thick, and synthesizing the evidence pointing to a global subsurface ocean beneath the ice.
Cassini Mission[edit]
From 2008 - 2010, Pappalardo served as the Project Scientist for the Cassini Equinox Mission. This was a 2 year extension of the original 4 year mission through the Saturnian system, focused in targeted flybys of Saturn's moons. He was responsible for the scientific integrity and overall scientific success of the mission, and served as the science spokesperson for the project.
The science observations collected during this mission resulted in the publication of hundreds of scientific papers, of which Papalardo co-authored more than one hundred. One of the most prominent discoveries during the mission was the likely presence of a subsurface ocean at Saturn's moon Encealedus.
At the conclusion of the Equinox mission, Pappalardo organized the science arguments for the Cassini Solstice Mission, which became known as the Grand Finale, where Cassini de-orbited itself into Saturn at the mission's 20 year conclusion.
Europa Research and the Europa Clipper Mission[edit]
Professional Service[edit]
Pappalardo has served as a member and leader in multiple professional organizations, including being a Committee Member for the Division of Planetary Sciences of the American Astronomical Society (2011-2014); Member of the Space Studies Board of the National Academy of Sciences (2008-2014); and several other steering groups and panels focused on planetary science and exploration.
Notable Honors and Awards[edit]
In 2016 and 2020 Dr. Papallardo was awarded the PL Magellan Award, which is the highest JPL award presented to an individual for scientific or technical accomplishments: in 2016, he received the award for outstanding leadership of the science of the Europa Mission from formulation of the objectives of the mission through the selection of the instrument payload. In 2020, he received the award for outstanding science leadership in the successful completion of the Europa Clipper Preliminary Design Review and mission confirmation.
In 2011, Pappalardo received the NASA Exceptional Service Medal for dedicated scientific and strategic leadership of the Cassini Equinox/Solstice Missions and the Europa Jupiter System flagship mission concept, and in 2008 he received the NASA Tech Briefs Award for his work on studying biogeochemical reactions under simulated Europa ocean conditions.